Black Bean Games European Launch of Dangerous Waters Page 4

By SimHQ on May 5, 2006 in _naval, hide

Snippet directly from the Press Kit: “Made exclusively for the European launch of SCS Dangerous Waters, presents the historic film that reveals the amazing story of the submarine USS Nautilus. In July of 1951 Congress authorized construction of the world’s first nuclear powered submarine. On December 12th of that year, the Navy Department announced that she would be the sixth ship of the fleet to bear the name NAUTILUS. Her keel was laid by President Harry S. Truman at the Electric Boat Shipyard in Groton, Connecticut on June 14, 1952. First, witness the launch of USS Nautilus — the world’s first “true” submarine, capable of staying underwater for months without refueling or surfacing. At 11 a. m. EST on January 17, 1955, Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson USN, ordered all lines cast off and signaled the memorable and historic message, “Underway on Nuclear Power.” Nautilus broke many records and in 1958 became the first submarine to cruise underneath the North Pole.”

Players who pre-order the game will get 4 additional manuals which deal with the following topics:

Volume I: Mission editor; Volume II: Naval station; Volume III: MH-60 / P-3C; Volume IV: Kilo Class -Akula Class – Seawolf Class – 688 Class.

The content of the 4 manuals is the same as the full English manual originally supplied through Battlefront.com with the addition of the Mission Editor manual, which has until now only been available as a PDF.

The retail game itself ships with a 100 odd page manual that is localized for Germany, France, Spanish and apparently Italian. The 4 additional manuals above are not localized (statement by a Black Bean official). This means that good knowledge of the English language is still needed. On top of that, you will encounter the problem unique to those situations, where your written manual will be in one language while the game itself is in a different one. The game will be shipped patched up to v1.03 and will have a special presentation by CDR Jeff Tall included. On top of that, a special voucher offering a 50% off all tickets to the RNSM will be included within the Dangerous Waters box.

On the whole the European version gives you a lot of bang-for-the-buck, especially for people who prefer Single Player over the multiplayer experience. The added content, most notably the high quality missions by Bill Nichols which provide you a lot of worthwhile game time. All in all, considering the original campaign / missions and the added content together, we are looking at easily 100 hours of game time in single player alone. On top of that you get a well-balanced and stable multiplayer game experience which is unlike any other simulation on the market right now. The introduction by CDR Jeff Tall and the Nautilus Documentary are just the tasty cream on the cake. You surely should not miss that one.

Black Bean Games have a S.C.S. Dangerous Waters site here and an official forum aimed at creating a strong European community. One little drawback to this at the moment is the fact that to register at the forum you need to be able to read Italian. However, Davide from Black Bean Games has mentioned that their IT department is currently working on resolving the issue.

After the presentation there was plenty of time to talk to Jamie one-on-one.
That is, after he had completed his Interview for TVE, a Spanish TV station.

After the Lunch, we were offered the chance to take part in a guided tour of the WW2 submarine HMS Alliance. Our guide was CDR Jeff Tall who has served as Commanding Officer on both Diesel and Nuclear submarines (though not on the HMS Alliance itself).